Joan
She was standing at the foot of the bed and the first thought he had was: what did she do to her hair? It was short, very short--almost, Joan of Arc short and she shone; she shone, she was shiny but not happy. Oh no. Definitely not happy. She had her arms crossed in front of her body the way she did when she was holding the world away from her. In the way she crisscrossed her body in an ’X’ marks the spot, and here is the line you will not cross.
Oh right, he knew the look.
There was a burning behind his eyes and a strange feeling of something tearing at the back of his throat and he turned his face down into the pillow away from her. His Joan, the Joan of the clean slate, the path of Buffy without pain, a better Buffy oh yeah definitely…wanna switch this Joan for that one please.
There was a cracking in his throat and he realized he hadn’t cried…had tried to rip his heart out and had tore up the place but he in himself hadn’t cracked to leak.
Wasn’t ‘bout to now.
He could still feel her there and felt a pressure on the end of the bed; the indention on the mattress of someone sitting next to him.
“No.” He said simply, like a child. Just that, just: ’no.’
He wanted to sleep for a million years. Or well, at least through the night. Maybe it was only five minutes and maybe it was in his dream, but he felt her body and he knew her body, her self, her soul, he felt her lay next to him and press herself against his back, he knew it was her because his insides cracked the shell to show the soft; so soft inside the way he was whenever near her and the warm wave moving through him, asking to touch, to touch the warm light of her heart.
Still, he tucked himself away from her, shied away from letting himself be with her, pulled into himself--but still it was there the warmth in him seeking her.
He felt her arms wrap around him and pull him in close to her heart and he fought to pull away like a truculent child, but she held him close, close enough to say or he thought he felt, and if it was in words it would be this.
I’m sorry.
The tiny crack was threatening a quake a real continent breaker now, a reenactment of the events sending the City of Atlantis to the bottom of the sea. See how far he could fall? And she wasn’t even trying.
As if aware of his precarious state he could feel her start to pull away--and suddenly he didn’t want that either. Like a child with yes confused with no and neither would get him what he wanted. He felt something like a kiss on the back of his head.
The world is wild Spike, what were you thinking? The world is wild.
She hugged him and he knew it was for the last time and he rolled over to seize her, to bind her to him.
“Buffy.”
She was gone.
*
He woke slowly, carefully, cautiously encased, held tight but it wasn’t her, not her soul, her heat, it wasn’t female, but feline.
The cats.
The cats had found their way inside. Hadn’t he closed the back window? He sighed as his left hand drifted, stroked the soft fur of the cat lying snug against his side. He felt/heard the cat respond with a deep purr and a bit of a stretch. It was the slight movement of waking but not willing to move all the way away. He raised his head to look about and saw cats to the left and right and there was Jowa staking her claim as reigning kit on top of his chest.
She awoke, looked at him and yawned. Sharp needle fangs exposed for a moment and then tucked undercover in a pert furry face. For a moment it reminded him of vamp hiding under human and remembered again why these were his friends. With vampires all but extinct and humans alight, alive and moving on. moving on, cats were the closest he had to kin.
But now what?
Spike lay his head back down and stared at the ceiling and considered how to get up. Or did he mean...out?
He was tired, very tired.
He felt the gentle tip tap of feline feet walking up his body to greet him--huh...Jowa won’t stand for that. He raised his head just enough to stem any small cat fight about to erupt, some petty dispute over the property lines called his chest. Remarkably Jowa just dipped her head in greeting to the yellow striped tabby as they rubbed heads in hello. Greeting completed they both turned their attention to the big headed creature lying prone on the bed who fed them, food, food, lovely food, and sweet, gentle strokes on fur. Mmm good.
Spike smiled, he had to. “Well, who are you Blondie?” She said nothing and leapt from the bed when he moved his hand to stroke her fur.
Typical.
He sighed. Looks like we’re getting up mates. He gently moved and disengaged himself from the furry bodies, some of them already anticipating the first meal of the day meowing and jumping and leading the way into the kitchen. Food. Source of food. Run, trot to the cupboard to the small swinging door thing...mmm good.
Mmm Good.
Another day.
Great. Just great.
*
It was late afternoon. He had slept through the night and most of the day but he still felt drained and ready for more sleep. He straightened the house as if order would beget order; threw a stack of old notes away in a trash bag and put it out by the door. Dried blood finally cleaned off the floor and see? All back to rights.
He didn’t want the cats inside tonight so he got the bag of food and went out the back door shaking the bag--the sound like music to domesticated beasts pretending to be wild. Living wild in the world until meal time and then it was all tender love and lets’ curl up on the pillow. This triggered some strange thought, something it would do well to remember, something that felt like a debt to pay, a tally secreted away in the back of his mind...
Huh.
Nothing. He couldn’t remember and he let it go.
He poured enough food into the bowls on the back porch to keep them fed for days, for weeks even, if nothing bigger came by to scarf it down and he thought this for a moment: ‘what they would do without him?’ How would the cats get on if he got lost somewhere in the wild world?
But...they would find a way. Even Jowa and Germaine would move along to a farmhouse or such. Everyone moved on...except for him.
What was he doing in this world? Didn’t understand it not by halves even after 140 odd years there would never be enough time for William to reconcile himself with being here. He was an alien, truly. As a human, as a ensouled demon and even as a demon complete he would have been rootless without Dru or Buffy. He was made to be with a mate. ‘Twasn’t a weakness...it was quite simply...what he wanted, how he understood himself in the world, how he wanted to live in the world, to be in union with your opposite...ah what was he thinking? This went nowhere. He would go mad down this rocka bye bye sanity road. Balls. Let it go.
Time to go see Oscar.
He had been standing on the back porch under the protection of the awning. He had been standing staring absently out into the back yard when his attention focused on the Ben Franklin kiln he used for burning the trash. Huh.
The stove door was open...hanging ajar--and that was no good. Didn’t want the cats to get into the habit of getting in there for warmth or shelter, had a particular nightmare about setting one of them on fire accidentally, and god knows he knew what that felt like and wouldn’t wish it on feline or foe; so he always kept the door closed.
He evaluated the overcast day and considered the potency of the three pretty sun rays come out to play and decided oh well, safe enough. He strode across the yard and when he reached the stove he banged on the outside to scare any furry bodies that were in there to come racing out. Nothing. Shit. He would have to look. Bullocks...
He leaned over and looked in to see... Nothing.
Well that was good wasn’t it? Fire got hot enough to burn (it) all away. That’s good...that’s good...he closed the door securely and walked back into the house thinking about what staples he might bring with him to Oscar. Damn lad was too slight, too skinny indeed to have the weight of the world on his bony shoulders as well. Put the world in danger, that. Oscar’s sharp bones could bruise the grasslands of Nebraska. And hadn’t he mentioned a baddie that wanted ticket to down under, so to speak?
The ax might do. Had Oscar said...it might be needed? He would bring one just in case.
He stepped around the cats on the back porch telling them, insisting again that they should “stay outside--go hunt something.”
“You lot will get lax, then where will you be when it’s just up to you alone?”
He looked over his shoulder to check the sky for rain and was there enough petrol in the car? Perhaps he should stop before going over to Oscar’s and all these thoughts were playing and nothing pressing as he scanned the yard the way he always did on habit a ‘check your exit’ reflex--when his head swiveled back so fast there was a crack in his neck.
He was staring at the Ben Franklin stove.
The door he had just secured has hanging open like an astonished gape.
His jaw almost dropped to match...almost....
Time did that funny slow down thing and colors did the Technicolor heighten thing. Those elements in the hologram that sharpened every detail to a sharpie point when reality got...challenged.
As if every color, every object was deliberately heightened in saturation and the details of this extra boost would persuade you that, nothing had changed...this is still the real world, see? And here it is back to you plus ten.
A sharpie point and mark this well my little red marker; every tree, every blade of grass, every, everything marked in yellow highlighter and underlined as well. That’s how it felt.
His brow pulled together as he walked to the edge of the porch. Puzzled, he slowly...he decided on slowly, he slowly walked back to the stove at the end of the clearing. Cocking his head he looked at it, and then looked around the yard. Senses open, searching for movement, scents of intention...nothing.
Just the cool evening. Just a cool evening coming on in for a landing.
Was that a chill across his cheek? The breeze maybe. He knew where his mind wanted to go, but best not to jump to conclusions. Still looking around he banged absently on the side of the potbellied stove for any cat that might have gotten inside in the interim and then slowly, yes the vote was still for slowly; he closed the door, secured the lock, slipped the safety and now it was dead bolted. Didn’t need a key to undo it--but still, it would take a deal of finagling and a bit of muscle to loose the works.
Right then. Off to Oscars.
And he put it from his mind.
*
Oscar
Oscar Black Elk Middleton was a slight man, small even and almost certainly more than a little effeminate and for all these attributes that would have made it difficult for him indeed inside a biker bar he had one that did not.
Power.
Pure power rolled away and around him and when people heard the kettle drum of his heart beat...they kept their distance. He had respect certainly, and friendly hello’s all ‘round--but...but there was this thing about him that struck more than a little fear in his fellows. There was this power and looking at it, being around it stimulated the innate knowledge that all humans carry--better watch that guy; power corrupts.
Even the other shamans and elders kept a bit of a distance. It came in handy most times, most times it gave him the privacy he needed to advance his skills and work with Spike.
Um...this was his ‘work’. This is what he did:
He traveled intradimensionly and waved the red flag that was the booty of his soul, the purity of himself to reigning demons still working their will on the earth plane either directly or indirectly, and just the proximity of his clean spirit would be enough to piss them off, and they would chase him back through the votex to come out the other end through his hometown portal and into the waiting arms of an armed Spike.
It was a dreadfully simple cat and mouse but still a dangerous game for all that...most demons on the surface of the planet had been eliminated or had gone underground, but they were still there, their dark presence was still felt, but out of reach of the multitude of slayers and so kept the Earth as a whole from moving on. From shifting to a higher wavelength, a lighter dimension. And he, Oscar was one of the few people on the planet now doing this kind of ‘ahem,’ work.
And Spike was one of the few warriors on the planet who would play by the rules of his game and who could effectively employ the art of the defensive offensive. For when the demons came through the portal to discover Spike armed and waiting...they were given the choice of flight or fight. Fly back through, find their way back into the in between world...or face off with Spike.
O.K. it was really about dangling bait for bully’s and perhaps it was entrapment of a sort but with a side dish of free will. It was the fact that all Oscar did was show up and then run and that Spike never attacked first, that gave their little game the stamp of justice. It was the nature and intention of the demon that decided its own end. If it wanted violence, if it wanted destruction, then that is what it got. Right back at ya buddy.
They were cleaning the dregs of the basement. And because of the nature of what showed up, yowled growled, spit and spat green goo--it was work best done under the cover of a thick cloak for the dagger to work and so it was good that he was left alone.
But if the elders let him be because of his rare abilities it also kept him separate from others. Alone.
Spike and he had this in common and they never commiserated, never talked about it at all really, but empathy, even if unspoken, creates solid friendship. And they were friends. It was something.
And Spike had brought the world to Oscars door--his years of travel, his tales, his daring do’s to a soul hungry for the experience of being in the wide of the world but knew the door was shut to him all the same. For all his life...so far...
Oscar spent so many hours in time travel (just watching mind you) and dimensional traveling (just tourism mind you) he had a library of cosmic experience, but it made this world, this day to day Earth seem unreal to him. This Earth was the odd realm. And the people in it...odder.
He hooked into the natural world to ground himself and he could see into and empathize with other people’s lives, but that didn’t take the place of experience. With...well women for one. Oscar was one of those souls so completely balanced that his feminine side and masculine side were almost in equal measure--in the ancient days he would be considered to be touched by the Great Spirit but even with the residual respect granted to him by his tribe in his contemporary time and place--there was still that tinge of judgment as well. He was in a land of labor and practical people. He was born and bred and native to the land but even his tribe thought him citified. O.K. use the word. Gay.
He wasn’t and funny, that actually would have been a determent to him finding a life mate if he was--he felt no trepidation about who he was; he understood too much of the world to worry about the nonsense of such distinctions...but he just simply couldn’t find his equal. To find a woman as powerful as he and split the same way was...well...difficult. To find another man the same as him; can we say, one in billion?
But Spike had elements of balance, there was femininity interwoven comfortably with his masculine structure and so it was easy, well...easier to be his friend and there was a certain kind of understanding between them of what it meant to be a man and worship the feminine divine as your first best version of the Great Spirit’s face. (Not that he would bring that up to Spike, mind you)
They would have been right at home in Atlantis. Or better still...some of the civilizations older than that.
The Lamar wasn’t it? Hadn’t he journeyed back there once or twice?
“Ah well...” Oscar sighed. What world needed them more that the present? He knew this time and place thing, the kismet of it all and maybe not fate but a certain kind of sorted alignment with events that placed men like he and Spike in this world to help reintroduce the idea of the Great Spirit as a holy female presence.
And not croak over it.
So maybe there wasn’t fate, but there were intentions and plans and back up plans and if Alexander Graham Bell hadn’t invented the telephone it would have been that guy...you know that other guy who filed his patent only an hour later. Point is, when the Great Spirit really, really wants something done, it gets done and just shed that ‘it’s all about me I’m the fated royal one’ because that is mostly banana bread and something the hero clings to, to butter up the pain and ease the loss of a personal life, that: ‘I am chosen, I am prophesized’ can turn into a dangerous elitist thing that can taint the mind and create egocentric generals or cult leaders.
Always, always good to remember there is a plan A, B, C, and D for done. For the big battles...it is never ever only ‘all about you.’ Only you doing your best now.
This simple truth kept Oscar on the straight and narrow and helped him hop skip (and if that image wasn’t evidence of his holy feminine side what was?) over the terrible temptation of working his will that had brought down so many plans before him.
He knew about this ‘Red’ Spike had referred to. Spike had often compared their battle strategies, he had described how they would approach the same situation, but problem solve it differently. Spike knew enough about magic, he had rendered the hologram more than once and Oscar had seen the ripples still there in the fabric where Spike had dabbled--anyway Spike knew enough to speak intelligently and offer suggestions to the physics of the thing and actually because he was officially untutored, he often offered the creativity of the fresh perspective.
But he also knew enough to keep his distance; Spike knew magic wasn’t for him--not with his warrior nature. No. Not a good mix. Magic required humility and although Spike had learned humility in spades and dug a garden with that spade enough to grow a harvest for himself of humble pie--Spike, even fighting from the center as Samurai still was...well...Spike.
Bit of a spatting cat up against the wall and everything lost and so small in the spectrum of the devastation but oblivious to the disproportion he would claw the bear he came up against and never consider himself outmatched. And because...because of his singular lack of ability to see the odds against him...he succeeded. He very, very often succeeded when he never should have.
The way he used his will in battle was his own way of rendering reality.
And...because of this blindside...Spike had shown up on the radar of big time world events; had already really...but...but there was something else, something Oscar wasn’t allowed to see...or maybe it was still unformed, but it was something Spike was being lined up for. Spike was definitely a plan ‘E’ or maybe even an ‘L’ but he was on the list and...it was being whittled down daily and soon, it may be...batter up.
And so Oscar had done his best, albeit cloaked as appealing to Spike’s competitive nature to be ever better, to be a world master at hand to hand combat. He hoped it would be enough. Ah well...we all have our own plan...he himself was like, plan ‘C’; pretty high up on a short list. ‘Red’ had been plan ‘B’--didn’t know who plan ‘A’ was. He thought it might have been this suburban housewife, someone else from Sunnydale, but she had fallen down long ago and was incased in bronze, of all things, in her own prison somewhere. That’s all Oscar wanted to know, she was a nasty piece of work. And even though Red was still solid and working and powerful on this earth plane, she was out. Had simply fallen down too far. That’s o.k. it happens.
It’s funny how you admire the other members on your team, even the fallen ones...because you always have to consider how you learned by watching someone else fall from grace...and ‘if not for the grace of god go I’-
So many things on his mind today. It felt like a summing up, a subtotal and god, what would be the tally? Well, first things first.
He would need to move out into the world soon, leave the Nation for more reasons than that one but was reluctant to face the clamor of the world. The noise...and the pain. And temptations. That was how his teammates had fallen down...from what he had observed. And so he was as much cautious of the world as of seeing himself in the world. Prison...his own prison promoted a sense of...well...security. But he also knew if he didn’t leave soon on his own accord...he would be bumped out in a way he didn’t like. But until he was ready or strong enough to go into the world, Spike brought it to him. Through his stories and just the sheer power of his self. Being around Spike was itself a training ground. The macro of the history of the world in micro. From falling from grace as a human to demon, to living enslaved to hell, to bloody revolt, to ensouled independence day, to a new nation complete with flag flying: Spike!
Yeah...it was definitely the history of the world at Oscar’s door. And it meant something.
And so Oscar for his part had taught Spike a new way to fight. It was based on Kung Fu and Samurai and certain principals of many an Aboriginal people. Not to fight for the love of it--but to sit in the center without judgment. To hook into the source of self and tie that source to the four elements borrowing and boosting from Fire, Wind, Earth, Water--the chi of earth channeled through an agent working on her behalf. To do this took not pride but humility. To sit unemotional and render justice or karma back to the assailant blow for blow and if the assailant did not desist, the blows back were magnified.
The harder someone fought Spike the quicker they were defeated. If the demon backed off--Spike never went for the kill. It was all about quarter for quarter. Intention told all. If the intention of the assailant was malevolent, the earth rendered justice--if not, the assailant would recognize their master in Spike, if they continued to fight after that point--they fought from ego and so lost.
Oscar had read about Warriors like Spike. Achilles, Hector, Ajax, Xena were the ones that came to mind. Matter of fact, one time he brought up the hologram from the akashic records to give Spike some pointers from Hectors style. But once they had beers in hand and were watching, it was Spike who was giving advice to Hector.
Oscar had been surprised then and also a little afraid for his friend. What could this mean? All this skill and graced too, though Spike would never see it that way and where was this leading him? He was a great warrior but still low on the list. That he was this good and still only plan ‘E’ spoke of an unaddressed issue that weakened him in the eyes of the cosmos.
The world was moving on and Spike would be left behind. That was inevitable; being half demon would make that certain. He would be too dense to make the transition...but Oscar had been hoping....well, for a miracle. This vampire grandfather of his had become human....but as Spike was needed as a warrior for a while, that end seemed unlikely...but still...Oscar was reaching the end of what he could do for his friend and now something new needed to happen. Spike needed to experience something in addition to: ‘being of service.’
Oscar understood the principals of being of service and knew Spike had offered his to the Great Spirit, when he offered it to The Slayer as heaven’s proxy. He knew Spike had done this...problem was...did Spike?
Saying yes to love was to say yes to the Great Spirit.
And he knew Spike had even accepted it on some level...still...there were...’ahem’ issues.
Oscar understood the elements of the big picture and how one life plays into another to guide and push and pull the whole thing. He understood all this...but still...this was his friend. With the dark of the world drawing to a close, why would such a warrior still be needed? The world was changing...and Oscar would see the shift within his own lifetime. It would be a world so light...Spike as he was now, could not survive in it. All this was coming and still Spike was being prepared...was still needed as a warrior. It seemed a contradiction.
Unless.
Unless something, some ‘thing’ was still coming. Something perhaps, unforeseen, and Spike was being kept on the back burner as a wild card to guard heavens gate here on earth. He had offered none of this to his friend however, Spike had a thorn stuck in his paw about the Great Spirit right now and it would only piss him off in the extreme if he felt himself being set up.
Still Oscar felt time was growing short and when he saw his friend walk through the front door of his house, he knew it was.
*
Oscar felt his heart double slam in his chest and felt that thing you feel when your world first begins to change. Birth and death...
Spike nodded to him and set the package down on the kitchen table. He always brought supplies when he came to visit--the damn young man was so skinny, Spike didn’t think he took enough time to feed himself properly. So he always brought some staples. Speaking of which, Spike pulled out a six pack offered to toss one to Oscar and he shook his head. Spike nodded.
“You mind if I do?”
“Yes.”
That was a surprise.
“Come again?”
“Don’t drink Spike. Not yet. Just advice of course.”
Spike looked at him and then put the beer down; Oscar studied his friend intently until Spike sat heavily on the kitchen chair.
Oscar stood for thinking for a moment, and then pulled a chair up next to Spike. This would be the last time that he would see him in this world. As they say there together in quiet, he knew it and suspected Spike did too.
“Promise me something.”
Spike was looking down, wouldn’t look up, not yet.
“Promise me when we’re out of here and on the other side, you know, we’ll meet, you’ll take some time out of your busy eternity and we’ll meet at the big tree and go to the hall of records and settle that bet about Ajax once and for all. Because he so too does throw like a girl...promise me...”
Spike looked up at his friend. His only friend.
“I’ll never make it there mate, you know that--save your Sundays...”
He tried to turn it into a joke but lost wind at the end and it wasn’t funny.
They sat quietly and than Oscar asked softly: “What’s going on Spike? What’s happening?”
How in the world to answer that? How?
“She’s dead.”
Well, guess it was an easy answer after all.
Oscar looked his friend over, from the top of his head to his feet.
He was black and blue, his aura black and blue and battered to a bloody resin. He had lost a lot of power; it was bleeding out of him. He saw that Spike wanted to die, the physic wounds were all self inflicted. Ah Christ...
Without thinking he got up--it was as if he heard someone screaming and he had to, had to help quell the pain...he stepped around the chair and leaned over and held Spike, held his friend from behind...
Spike resisted at first but then the gift of unconditional love was too great to turn away from. Spike had the heart of a fighter, a scrapper and so turned into Oscars embrace like grabbing a life line.
Hewantedtodiehewantedtolivehewantedtodienonononohewantedtolive...
Oscar held him as part friend/part shaman while his doctor fingers searched his friends energy body for the worst of the blows and put at least...a band aid on them. He paused when he reached the back of Spike’s neck, he scented something, like a lingering perfume, vanilla maybe and oh yes definitely a presence, and someone had paid him a visit from the other side and had done pretty much what he was doing now. A certain someone...
Well, well...the bitch is back. And then he rolled his eyes heavenward and quickly apologized inside his head to her; ‘sorry but you know what I mean...always have to take the side of my friend...’
Truth
He felt the word press around him. Truth. And Oscar’s response to the energetic prodding: Yes well, I don’t think Spike’s ready for the truth do you?
Truth.
It insisted with a push of love behind and whether it was from his guide or from Spike’s guide...or her and she was...
(news item inserted)
It came like a block of information falling into place.
Holy brewskies. Well...Spike isn’t going to like that.
Tough.
Oscar smiled. He was beginning to see what Spike saw in this...
Ahem
“B.”
Oscar had said it out loud, said it softly but Spike had heard and said, voice cracking just a bit.
“Be what?”
“Be still, no better yet be comfortable; let’s move to the fireplace, time to talk.”
*
They were sitting comfortably now, Spike looked a little better at least it didn’t look like he wasn’t going to bleed his energy out all to death. Before Oscar could say anything Spike said,
“Thanks Oscar...I’m, I’m feeling better...was that some shaman thing?”
“Yeah great Shaman trick, ancient remedy...it’s called a HUG. You gotta a problem with that?”
Spike smiled...finally. “No, no problem...”
And then muttered “You’re such a girl...”
“Thank you...” Oscar responded with genuine gratitude. “Anyway, Good...cuz listen up you have plenty of other problems lemme tell ya.”
Spike; a little surprised, blinked and drew his brows together.
“O.K forget about that for a minute--talk about her.”
“Don’t wanna talk about her.”
“I know you never wanna, but I need to hear you talk about her.”
Spike’s jaws clamped shut and it looked like he was getting ready to bolt out the door.
“You leave Spike and we’ll never see each other again until the after life and you wanna leave like that--let me be the doctor--there’s something coming and I don’t have enough information.”
Then he spoke again, his voice a bit softer. “Talk about her please, doesn’t have to be anything big or important. I just need to hear you talk about her...please...”
Spike leaned his head against the back of the couch. Damn. Oscar never got pushy...must be something...he reached into his mind and tried to find the most innocuous thing to talk about.
“She got her hair cut short, really short, now why would she do that? She did it once to punish me, because I liked it long. Liquid gold and sweet smelling, like her, how she was in her body, but out here in the world at the same time. But she wouldn’t have cut it short this time for spite--I’m on the other side of the planet...must have been something else, some other reason...”
“She loved you.”
Silence.
“No...no...she...she didn’t...not in a real way...not in a way that mattered...”
“She loves you still--can’t you feel it pouring out to you?”
Oscar watched his friends face twist up in pain and knew he couldn’t do it. Spike would have to find the truth at his own speed. He could be seriously hurt if it was thrust upon him too fast. But he could help lead him in the right direction.
“When did you see her with her hair cut short?”
Spike’s brow drew up into a puzzled Oh? Where had that memory come from?
“I...saw a picture...no...” he was shaking his head trying to remember...then. Ding...seventy cents into the machine and out drops a clark bar sugar high, hi sugar my sweetest dream...
“It was a dream...last night...I had forgotten it...it was a dream...”
“Was it?”
“Oh you, and your ‘reality and dreams and who cares which is which’ talk--“
“Well then tell me about your dream--what did she do...”
Spike skipped that and went for something else...”she said something...”
Oscar said nothing didn’t want to break his concentration.
“Something about wildness, being wild....it’s a wild world...the world is wild. Something like that.”
Silence as they thought about it.
“What does that mean to you.”
“Nothing really...it’s not like a conversation we ever had before. Not a clue.”
“Well write it down before you forget, you may want to remember it later.”
“What’s going on Oscar?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve got to cut to it Spike and there is just no other way to say and I suspect you already know. But something big is coming down. Something big enough for The reigning heavyweight Slayer of the world to die in order to cross over to the other side so she can help you from there because god knows you wouldn’t let her help you from here.”
Terrible. Terrible.
Terrible thing to say.
The hair stood up on Spikes neck as a warning, Oscar’s words had the ring of truth and he was speaking now again and Spike put up his hands in a reflex to stop him but words slip past the hands of even the strongest warrior.
“She can help you from the other side in ways she couldn’t here. She can track events coming on the hologram and given, she has a strong will and everything seems to suggest she has a very strong will--she can work things from the other side--she can’t interfere mind you...just set up some good luck watch your back--“
“--Stop IT. Shut up. I mean it Oscar shut up!”
He did.
Quiet.
Quiet.
Speak now, speak it soft but say it:
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer is your Spiritual Guide, Spike.”
He stopped there and wouldn’t continue until Spike raised his head and looked him in the eye. He wouldn’t continue until it sunk in. Well...a bit...
Oscar went on:
“Your previous team is still, still intact--they have done an outstanding job so far in guiding you...still there...but they are all second in command to her. She’s taken over and is on your left shoulder and will be till the day you die.”
Spike was shaking his head...”No...”
“You know it’s true, you can feel it. She’s gone through her life review, has seen her life and the effect of her life, her actions on those around her and...and has elected herself to help you.”
Spike stuttered “Hhhelp Me? Help Me? The only...rere...reason she might be helping me is to get me to do something for HER...or...or for Him, you know--“
“Who Spike?”
“You know who...”
“God?”
Oscar drew in a breath...there was no time, time was gone...he had to risk alienating his friend.
“Spike. Stop it. Just stop it. When you volunteered to serve her, you volunteered to serve the world.”
Silence.
“Sorry,” then a little softer. “Sorry...but you keep pretending like you’re a victim here and it doesn’t suit you and I know you feel like you’ve been cast adrift or been kept alive in a box and I’m gonna tell you something...it’s true. You have been. You have been like a prisoner, not allowed to move. You have been in stasis. And yes it has just about driven you nuts--BUT. Has it? Are you crazy?”
Spike just stared at him.
“Native Americans can’t stand it in jail. We simply find it impossible. It is hell on earth. A living hole to live in with no air to breathe, no movement unchecked. Few survive being gripped so tight. But still, as terrible as it is, I have to ask you--is it unjustified? You gonna tell me you have done nothing to put you in prison?
“You know what I’ve done.” Spike said it almost harshly.
“Right then. That begs the next question. What is the intention of prison? To set those aside from society...no distraction of the worlds pleasures or rewards...just the test of repetition and plenty of time to do it in. Being in prison is designed to break you or make you. Make you grow strong or go crazy. One could go crazy in such a place...are you crazy?”
Silence as Spike considered. “No.”
Oscar almost smiled but didn’t...did not...Spike seemed to have lost his glorious sense of humor for the moment.
“Spike if you were to go up against Achilles and Hector, Ajax and Xena one after another...I’d put my money on you--well not now of course you look like a tired sponge...but you know what I mean. That kind of strength isn’t just in the body it is fueled from the spirit and the mind. So o.k. privation has just about driven you nuts--but it hasn’t.”
Spike thought about Buffy’s package and wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know about how or if she’s using you or not, you gotta take that up with them later. All you gotta admit to yourself is that you volunteered to serve.”
“What if I want out?”
“Do you?”
Beat.
“I think I do.”
“Well that’s different. That’s between you and the Great Spirit. But you’re hurting now--so don’t talk out loud making heart felt proclamations all over the place when you’re hurting.”
Silence for a moment and then Oscar announced like it was good news.
“Batter up.”
Spike looked at him stunned for a moment and then his gaze sharpened as he got the point.
“That bitch...that bleedin--’”
And here he held his breathe on ‘the other word’ even now, angry as he was he couldn’t curse her beyond the letter ‘B’ never got to ‘C’ the c word, just stuck on B, which was her name after all--call it what it is...but nothing further down the alphabet.
“Bbbleedin...interfering...it...”
Now Oscar did smile. Well at least Spike had guessed it and he could say it now out loud.
“She’s bumped you up on the list Spike...whatever this task is...she has convinced them you can do it...you’re the ‘go to’ guy--”
“--What? With her yammering away at me, telling me what to do--“
“Well...yeah, there is that...definitely, she was a part of the deal.”
Suddenly Oscar was enjoying this...not hurting Spike, no not that...it was the anarchist in him that loved to tear down the veil and the whoopee cry of let ‘er ripppp!
“Hey! Bright side! Together again eh?”
Spike looked at Oscar so sharply it could have been a punch.
“Just you hold on...you hold onto your Bull, buddy, you have free will Spike...do want you want--say yes...say no...say yea to the thing and shut her out, say nay to the thing and let her in...it’s up to you. You are the best definition of a self made man I ever saw. So BE self made. This isn’t destiny calling.”
Oscar leaned in and spoke a little more softly.
“It is your word.”
He let that sink in.
“You made a promise to serve, you can break it...but it is you...”
Oscar broke off suddenly.
“Okay they’re pulling back...guess you’ve got enough to think about...and now something about...Tequila? And what are you...running a stud kitten poker parlor farm?”
Oscar shrugged while this sank in to Spike.
“You gambling? You know the elders wouldn’t take kindly to the competition.”
“No mate...it’s...her...her...letting me know...it’s her. It’s an in...joke.”
And as the image of him surrounded by cats and kittens and what that must look like from a birds eye view...Master Vamp worrying over a Mother Cat delivering kittens...he suddenly saw himself differently and...it...was funny...it was...and he almost smiled.
He imagined the expression on her face at the sight--the dry sardonic twist of her lip, cocked eyebrow but all...all ending with a gentle eye.
Her gentle eye.
She was so much like him in so many ways...and they had always worked brilliantly together...that much of their life had run to true. But...
“Oscar...I...I don’t think I could stand having her around...don’t know as that I want her there...”
(God could you imagine history repeating itself so completely, her around, the vibration of her, her soul, her heart and never being able to touch? If he wasn’t crazy now...he would be)
Spike hung his head and it swung gently from side to side. Buffy. It was impossible.
“What could she be thinking?”
“You don’t have to figure it all out tonight...just this minute...just because she’s your guide doesn’t mean you will feel her around all the time. I don’t know her...but...does it seem likely she would become your guide for no reason?”
Spike harummphed. “That’s the bloody problem mate--her reasons. She can problem solve like a gattling gun going through a wood chopper.”
Oscar screwed up his face at the image of rendering chaos and then mused.
“Huh...kinda reminds me of someone...”
“Look, I said we worked well together...I admit that...”
“So maybe this isn’t about you...maybe there is a bigger picture and it’ s about putting together a winning team--“
“--It’s impossible--“
“--Does she win?” Oscar continued unperturbed by the interruption.
Bullocks.
“Yeah, yeah she does. She always wins.”
Oscar said nothing but the silence said: ‘there you go.’
Spike said nothing. But his thought ran ‘round, repeating variations on...what could she be thinking? I...I thought she was pissed at me....what had Oscar said about her going through a life review? Seeing her life, her actions...
He looked at Oscar as if for an answer.
Oscar shrugged but remained silent--he was going through the cupboards searching...he kept getting the image of a Tequila bottle and it seems he had a bottle somewhere...there was some dim recollection...but where? Oh yeah, by gum there it is--he pulled out the half filled bottle of Tequila he had hidden from his brother...it was behind the fire extinguisher...well that was appropriate. He had put that there...what? Almost three years ago. He pulled two glasses from another cupboard and put ice cubes and a splash of water in one.
And poured a good stiff three shots into the other, splashing the ice cubes in other glass. Held the heavyweight drink to the Vampire and took the other and sat across from his friend.
They were quiet for a moment, maybe the last moment they would be together and there were things to say, things to do...but for right now it was about peace. Was it about peace?
“A peace offering?” Spike asked looking into his glass into the golden liquid and seeing his girl.
“Her idea.”
“Aren’t they all.”
And now they did laugh. The men’s side of the common joke but understood universally because only a man knew what it meant to be in service to...SHE.
This was not a commitment...Spike had to think deeply about this...thing...but he would surrender long enough to his love to...
He raised his glass slightly to Oscar to the furniture to the empty air even...
“To B--”
“--B for...”
Small smile foretold Oscar asking for, playing for more...guiding to the joke in the Shaman way to laughter, laughter the best, bestest healer.
Spike shook his head at the opening and smiling almost, almost chuckling said simply...
“B for Buffy...”
They drank in silence.
*
